The digitization of the real estate industry has not only increased its reach but has changed its overall marketing operations too. Like other sectors, real estate businesses are also leveraging the ease offered by the virtual market.
With the advancement in technology, businesses can easily showcase their properties, digitally promote and sell them with cheaper investment. It has also helped the real estate industry to control costs and reciprocate the same benefits to consumers. One such technology is virtual staging, let’s see how it is changing the landscape in the realty sector.
What is Virtual Staging?
Virtual staging is the process of creating realistic images of a property, its interiors, and exteriors. It aims to create a showroom feel, where consumers can visualize the actual product with its help. It is pretty popular among real estate businesses, interior designers, photographers, and consumers. Virtual staging is an advanced technology and it has become a cost-effective alternative to traditional staging. This home staging technique produces exceptionally photo realistic staged images of vacant homes, for real estate brokers.
How is it Better than Traditional Staging
Over time, virtual staging has become a preferred choice of businesses over traditional staging. The following factors are the reason behind its growing popularity.
1. Traditional Staging Needs More Capital
Virtual staging involves less investment as compared to traditional staging. For traditional home staging, you need expensive furniture to give clarity on the aesthetics. Moreover, the reactors may find their investment blocked if the property remains unsold for a long time. Home staging for mid-range or smaller properties also does not yield the expected consumer response as the buyers are generally looking for low-budget staging. Whereas hiring a virtual staging solutions company can help businesses achieve improved results by spending just a fraction of the traditional staging budget,
2. Virtual Staging Offers Designing Freedom
Virtual staging lets you showcase the property in various designs. Experts from virtual property staging services can help you represent the property as per updated trends and designs. Traditional staging can be utilized in a limited capacity as the interior furnishing and decor cannot be changed once set, you have to act according to the budget and market availability. Virtual staging can also be used in complex property spaces that would otherwise go vacant.
3. Virtual Staging is Easier to Market
Unlike traditional home staging, virtual staging can be coupled with digital marketing to improve lead generation. Additional marketing efforts are needed in the case of traditional home staging. So, when lead generation and customer acquisition are the significant goals of staging, going the virtual way is a far better option than investing in furnishings. As a real estate business you need an online presence, customers like to search and sort options through the internet. You need pictures that attract leads and virtual staging services can be of assistance here.
Role of Virtual Staging in Real Estate
The future of real estate lies in using economically viable technologies that can reduce the overall cost burden on property prices. Apart from cost benefits, if the technology supports easier marketing and facilitates consumers in concluding a satisfactory choice, it will be a win-win situation. A similar role is played by virtual staging, the following reasons make it a crucial factor in the industry’s future.
1. Provides Realistic Preview
Expert virtual staging service providers design the room aesthetics and ambiance to suit prospective consumers’ persona. It helps customers visualize how their daily life in the property would feel. For instance, if your prospective buyers are a couple, virtual staging can be used to highlight the spaces a woman focuses on. Like, the kitchen-utility area, the bedroom, the dressing area, etc. Similarly, for the man – the living room, space to spend leisure time, homework station, etc, can be highlighted.
The goal of virtual staging is to bring a prospective buyer’s imagination to life. It is also a key aspect of realty selling, and a major reason for businesses to adopt this technology. The overall feel in the output of staging should be as close to reality as possible, making it a job for skilled professionals.
2. Easy for Redecorating and Decluttering
With visual staging you do not need time to redecorate and rearrange a property. Many times when a property is vacated for selling, it has traces of objects, old settings, and pieces of furniture of previous habitants. There might be repair works too. Using virtual property staging services you can list the property for sale right away without wasting time waiting for any decluttering. Professionals will do the redecorating as per the current market trends and help you attract prospective buyers. This digital decluttering will provide you with extra time to close a deal. Saving time is very important for industries like real estate as the flow of capital can be affected by changing rates, so it is a priority for brokers to hold a property for the least amount of time.
3. Fast Output
Property is a fluid commodity, as discussed above, the rates may rise or fall with time. To coordinate with the rate changes you need to have a mechanism that facilitates faster transactions. This is where virtual staging plays a key role in influencing the sector’s future. The output is fast, and many virtual staging solution providers give realistic property pictures with 24 hours turnaround time. Realtor can begin the selling process as soon as they get a layout map, rather than waiting for the construction to complete. In the case of resale properties, they don’t have to wait for vacating and repair works to finish. The faster output helps gain more time for marketing and bag a deal quickly.
4. Cost-Effective
The cost benefits of virtual staging have already been discussed. It has a reciprocal role in real estate’s profits, making it a significant technology in the future of property businesses. Hiring virtual home staging companies saves you spending on infrastructure and technology, as they work remotely. It also saves the investment in human resources and training. Virtual staging requires skills and experience to sketch the exact target customer’s persona. Outsourcing to these agencies saves you the hassle of finding eligible talent.
Adding these benefits to the cost advantages it has on a real estate business, makes virtual staging a formidable technology to adopt. Property businesses do not need to spend on aesthetics and furniture, but rather have a virtual walk-through and achieve sales.
5. Elaborated and Updated Designing
Virtual staging experts can use updated and trendy interior designs. It can be as detailed as required. Regardless of the cost of aesthetics, and furnishing, staging professionals can add respective elements to meet a prospective consumer’s taste.
Conclusion
Images play an important role in influencing the real estate consumer’s decision. Virtual staging photos that miss the real appeal result in a loss of leads. The quality of virtual staging is crucial to reap its benefits. Therefore to find the best virtual staging solution providers, analyze their experience, and technology and talk to their clients.
About the Guest Author
Kathy Butters is a content strategist currently working at PhotozWorld, a leading photo editing, retouching, restoration and image enhancing company providing dependable and affordable photo editing services. As a creative writer and a photography enthusiast for more than 10 years, she loves to share her passion for image editing with other professionals. Her write-ups usually cover topics surrounding tips or best practices for image editing, photo retouching, portrait editing, photo correction, and more.
Furthermore, she educates companies from different niches and industries on how they can take their business to new heights with high-quality pictures. For more than ten years, she has been actively sharing interesting articles and blogs to help retailers, merchants, entrepreneurs, and other online businesses leverage the power of photo editing through her write-ups. Besides writing, Kathy is also fond of photography and turning her shots into sketches. Creative writer and a photography enthusiast for more than 10 years.
